


melancholy dreaming

by kurchains



Category: SK8 the Infinity (Anime)
Genre: Banter, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Friendship, Langa is Bad at Feelings, Langa spends a lot of time brooding, M/M, Pining, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, Reki is Reki, Skateboarding, but it is blatantly gay, cute dudes doing cute shit, healthy bro banter as i always say, sharing a soda is now inherently homosexual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-16 16:15:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28709565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kurchains/pseuds/kurchains
Summary: “What are you doing?”Reki has his forehead pressed against the glass, face scrunched as he inspects the inside of the vending machine. The soft white light inside shines upon his face at an unflattering angle.“I swear this one works normally,” Reki dismisses Langa with a wave. His focus remains on the machine, his scrawny frame leaning unnaturally onto it.(or: Langa and Reki share a melon soda, and maybe a thing or two about dreams.)
Relationships: Hasegawa Langa/Kyan Reki
Comments: 23
Kudos: 284





	melancholy dreaming

**Author's Note:**

> me, holding reki and langa: i have only known these characters for one episode but if anything happens to them i will kill everyone in this room and then myself
> 
> follow me on twitter! @kurchains

After just a few short hours in town, Langa is hard-pressed to find a time where Okinawa _isn’t_ lively. Canada seems so far compared to this place, with its temperate breezes and bustling energy—far, far away from the frigid darkness that Langa has come to know his entire life. People _here_ spill out of bars and 24-hour restaurants. They cast their shadows against vivid neon signs. Their laughter echoes down the streets. It’s a buoyant social bubble he admires from afar, slumped down on this street corner, head in his hands like a loitering teenager with nothing better to do.

In many ways, he _is_ a loitering teenager with nothing better to do. 

Okinawa feels like the seasons changed overnight; the snow, for once in Langa’s life, has melted away, leaving behind some new, jarring normal: a tropical escape from reality. Reki fits inside it perfectly, with deep red spikes the shade of cherry slushies and a firecracker personality to match. In every single way, he’s tainted with Okinawa air, with crazy shenanigans and wild skateboard races.

Langa is not quite sure where he fits in.

“ _Fucking shit,”_ Reki spits from around the corner, where a neat little vending machine is nestled into a tight alleyway. He scuffs the concrete with his unlaced high-top sneakers. “Stupid piece of junk.”

“You alright?” Langa drones. (It’s out of courtesy, really; the flickering street lights and the people surrounding them keep him zoning in and out. They’re the perfect springboard for mindless brooding.)

Then, he hears a thud, and the trance breaks. Casting one more wayward glance towards the disappearing figures, he shoves his body off of the sidewalk and stumbles around the corner.

“What are you doing?” 

Reki has his forehead pressed against the glass, face scrunched as he inspects the inside of the vending machine. The soft white light inside shines upon his face at an unflattering angle.

“I _swear_ this one works normally,” Reki dismisses Langa with a wave. His focus remains on the machine, his scrawny frame leaning unnaturally onto it. 

Langa wonders if there is ever a time when Reki isn’t lively, either. Even now, with furrowed brows and lips pursed in deep thought, he radiates the same bustling energy as the Okinawa air: light and easy. He effortlessly blends into the norm. The boy jerks back, then _beams,_ practically hopping off of the broken concrete.

Reki seems to buzz at the same frequency as neon fluorescent signs. He’s no different than the blink of the street light above them, twinkling and glowing like an artificial star. This attitude, a breezy breath of fresh air, is just second nature for him. 

He takes a few brisk steps back, until his back is up against the opposite brick wall. It feels like he is revving himself up, a bull waiting to charge at the unsuspecting vending machine, which stays frozen and dormant like a deer in headlights. There’s a gleam in his bright eyes and his jaw is set. Langa recognizes this look—it’s the same one he saw earlier that day, watching helplessly with his back to the concrete as Reki made a single jump on his skateboard with ease. That, too, is something that Langa already knows: if Reki has that look on his face, there’s nothing that’s going to stop him.

Langa tries, anyway. “Are you sure that’s—”

Reki charges forward, extending his left leg to give a swift, hard kick to the vending machine. All of the drinks inside rattle, jostling the old metal and causing the light inside to flicker even more. After the drinks finally settle, one soda pops out of the tight space where it was stuck, and falls.

Reki whoops in victory, throwing his casted wrist in the air. He hisses, then brings it back down to his side.

“Oldest trick in the book,” he cackles with a snide smirk, reaching inside of the machine with his right hand to grab the drink.

“Worked like a charm,” Langa deadpans.

“ _Hey,_ I got the drink, right?” He growls, affronted, tilting the drink up and down as he waves it around.

“What even _is_ that?”

Langa eyes the bottle; though his hand covers the label, a light green soda fizzes inside clear plastic. The foreign, unsettling shade makes his stomach churn already.

“Melon soda?” Reki gasps. “Oh man, you haven’t had _melon soda?_ Canada Boy, you are in for a treat.”

Langa sputters, face burning. “Just because I’m from Canada doesn’t mean my whole personality is based on it!”

  
“You’re like a gloomy winter,” the other boy groans, slightly miffed as he steps closer, “always brooding. And your hair looks like an icicle!”

Langa staggers back. He hunches his shoulders up to his reddening ears, and toys with the thin bangs that hang loosely around his forehead. (They _have_ been making it harder to see, sometimes. Maybe it was time for a haircut.)

He stutters for a moment, then clenches his fists. “I could say the same about you, you know!”

“Don’t ruin the victory melon soda,” Reki tut-tuts with a grin, waving the drink in front of Langa’s face until he goes cross-eyed.

“Victory?”

“For tonight? _”_ He asserts as if _tonight_ isn’t the abstract idea that it is.“You were _amazing—_ all… _woosh_ and _waaah,_ y’know?” Reki holds the soda bottle like a skateboard, mimicking Langa’s time in the air as he brings the drink high over their heads.

“Oh, you mean the skating,” he mumbles dumbly. “It wasn’t _that_ amazing.”

“Are you _kidding?”_ Reki squeaks, jerking the bottle back to his chest. “It was like you knew how to skate all along.”

Langa’s heart leaps into his throat. Breath quickening, he breaks away from the other boy’s scrutinizing gaze. “Well. Not exactly.”

When he looks back, Reki is peering up at him with trained, slightly squinted eyes. Whatever conclusion he comes to, it makes him nod his head.

“Snowboarding, right?”

Langa tries to ignore the pounding in his chest, the sweat that begins to build on his palms and just below his hairline. It was easy to never think about before—not directly, anyway. He could imagine the flurries of snow that trickled down from the pale grey clouds, the crunch of the earth beneath his boots, the few moments that were slow and soundless as he rose high above the snow, but to put a name to the one thing that had been on his mind…

Langa’s throat dries up instantly.

_“What?”_

“That’s what Cherry Blossom said,” Reki speaks softly, now, “that with your technique, you were a snowboarder. A good one, too.”

“I was okay,” Langa mutters, at a loss for words.

Reki snarls, shoving Langa’s chest with the drink in his hands. The movement sends Langa staggering back out of the alleyway. “Did you even _see_ yourself out there? You were fucking _awesome!”_

The whir of fluorescent street lights fill up the holes in their gaping silence. Langa feels his body hum with the sound, trembling and jittery as a few shaky breaths steady him. His eyes flutter shut. “Can I have that soda now?”

He holds a clammy palm, eyes still clenched shut. There is a small scuffling sound before Langa feels the weight of the drink in his hand. The touch of its brisk, cool contents calms the static that rises in his arms.

Langa opens his eyes and grips the bottle even tighter. Silently, he shuffles back to the street corner and sits down again. Reki does not follow. The drone of the lights grows louder. Twitching, Langa uncaps the drink, and the resounding hiss of pressure leaving the bottle drowns out the incessant fluorescent buzz, if only for a moment.

Langa can’t help but sigh, shoulders melting as the tension leaves his body.

“You’re so, _bleargh_ , sometimes,” Reki scoffs from behind him, embittered.

Down on the sidewalk, Langa tries to tune out the pang in his heart. He stretches his lanky legs out with a sigh. “You have to start using actual words, sometime.”

With each passing moment, more and more venom fills Reki’s tone. “ _Meh,_ down in the dumps! Putting yourself down when you went out there and _killed_ it!” He shouts, plopping on the sidewalk beside Langa. “You don’t feel that adrenaline rush—that feeling of being awesome?”

“I don’t get excited like that,” Langa mumbles, taking a swig of the fizzy drink as his mind fills in the parts left unsaid. _Not anymore._ “There’s a word for it in english: melancholy.”

“ _Melon_ -choly?” Reki tests the foreign word on his tongue. With his heavily-accented voice, it comes out completely off. He looks at the drink, then gasps, elated by his realization. “Like the drink?”

“Me _-lan_ -choly,” Langa corrects, stifling a chuckle. “Like _meh_ and _bleargh_ all in one.”

Reki hums in thought. “Skating always makes me happy. I forget some people aren’t like that.”

“It was familiar,” he recounts the unruly memories of being on a skateboard for the second time in his head. “There were some hangups, but I got used to it.”

For a second, the boy next to him says nothing. Langa allows himself to relish in the feeling of a warm shoulder brushed up against his.

“Does snowboarding make you happy?” He asks, finally, and Langa nearly chokes on the soda.

“I don’t know.” He doesn’t want to elaborate. Thankfully, Reki hears his wordless prayer.

Instead, those bright red brows lift up high, crinkling his forehead. Langa stops himself from bringing a finger to smooth out those wrinkles. (Reki doesn’t need to worry about pointless things. Especially if they’re about _him._ ) He frowns, and lets out a disheartened grunt. “Oh.”

Langa lets out a soft laugh. He swirls the carbonated green liquid inside of the bottle to distract the bitterness from seeping into his voice. “You’re lucky. To know what makes you happy and to keep doing it.”

“It’s nice,” Reki agrees, “but not if you suck at it.”

He picks up on the hidden implication immediately. “You don’t suck at skating.”

The redheaded boy grasps his hair, ruffling it with a frustrated groan. “You got on that board twice, and crushed Shadow. He gave me this,” Reki spits, gesturing to his wrist in a cast. “I’m pretty sure that says more about me than you.”

“You don’t suck,” Langa repeats, this time slighted. “You were—”

 _Amazing. Incredible._ He had practically frozen time the first time that they met, flying through the blue sky in blurred frames of movement. _Like no one else._

Reki looks at him expectantly, bright red eyes shining with the glare of night. Langa takes another swig of melon soda. It’s sickeningly sweet. He coughs. “You were good. Great.”

“Whatever you say, Shaun White,” the boy titters, shaking his head. 

“Is that the only snowboarder you know?” Langa teases. He isn’t sure what causes it—the ugly shade of green, the bubbling sound of a fresh bottle of pop, or maybe the fact that Reki had bought it for him—but the melon soda makes him feel bold. He bumps the other boy’s shoulder with a grin.

“Shut up!” Reki squawks,“I’m a skater.” 

Langa relishes in the slight red that rises to his cheeks as he looks away. (It’s a new side to the brash, plucky boy from Okinawa. His recklessness is dulled down to a soft hue of pink that floods his neck and face. Embarrassment, Langa learns, is a good look on Reki.) “Whatever you say, Tony Hawk,” he taunts.

“I got you a victory drink and gave your lame ass a melon soda, and this is how you repay me?” Reki moans, punching Langa’s shoulder. “I expected cold from you, Canada Boy, but not _this_ cold.”

Though the nickname makes his eye twitch, he can’t help but let a small grin rise to his face. The task of fitting in here, in Okinawa, seemed daunting. Impossible, even. But with Reki’s warm weight, the sound of their shared laughter, and a bottle of cold melon soda in between his hands, Langa thinks that maybe, just maybe, he’s already starting to blend into the background.

“I saved your ass from getting tattooed,” Langa states bluntly, “I think that trumps anything else tonight.”

Reki cackles once more. “ _Pssh,_ you can be real snarky, y’know that?”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“No, just different. Good different. Less _melon_ -choly, or whatever.”

“Me _-lan-_ choly, Reki.”

“I know that!” The boy sputters. Then, he turns to face Langa, gazing up with those gleaming eyes and that set jaw again. “I’ll help you find it.”

Langa wonders how many times he’ll see that look.

“Huh?”

“The thing that makes you happy,” Reki clarifies with a beaming smile, “I’ll help you find it.”

“You already got me this drink—you don’t need to repay me.”

Reki leans his face closer to Langa’s, his grin fading away to a more stern expression. Langa, wide-eyed, jerks back. “I want you to feel that rush. The rush of living your dream, your happiness. And maybe even smile at something for once, instead of being all gloomy.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Don’t say that!” Reki yells, leaping to his feet. He whips around with one hand on his hip, and his casted wrist by his side. “You haven’t met _me_ yet.”

Langa feels his face go blank. He blinks. “A literal vending machine kicked your ass.”

“I’m going to kick _your_ ass in a second!” Reki growls, bouncing towards him, but hesitates for a moment.

Langa seizes the opportunity. “You wish.”

When the redhead finally lunges toward him, one arm raised and ready to punch, Langa feels the light air of Okinawa fill his lungs. It gives him a burst of energy as he bounds off of the sidewalk, drink forgotten entirely as its sticky contents spill out onto the concrete. They chase each other down the block, past blurry flashes of neon signs and strangers speaking, and weave in between cigarette smoke dissipating into the night. 

Langa is not sure if he’ll ever find it—the rush that fills his body, the thing that’ll make him happy—but as Reki stumbles in front of him, untied laces flopping around as his sneakers pound on the concrete, a small part of Langa wonders if he has already found it.


End file.
